Emma taps the side of her head and sighs, putting down her pen. She'll never get this. The words are jumbling together, like trying to read a road sign while going over 100 miles per hour. She gets up and grabs the coffee pot, then groans because of course, it's empty.
She checks the clock and decides that if she wants a shower, she won't have time to make a new batch. Damn. She gives one last look at the letter she was trying to write, and then goes to start her shower.
The warm water feels good on her skin. She hums and reaches for her shampoo. Strawberry, like always. It's basic and she knows it, but it was her favorite. Plus, she has matching conditioner, which is kind of hard to come by.
Emma loves showers. They're her private place and she can think about anything here. Sometimes she thinks the most ridiculous thoughts. 'Is the 's' or 'c' silent in scent?' Or, 'Why do we say "heads up" when we're suppose to duck?'
Sometimes she gets philosophical. 'There are thousands of days in my life that I have completely forgotten and I don't know how I feel about that.'
When the water runs cold, Emma knows she can't delay it anymore and steps out, wrapping a too short, ratty towel around her body. It only goes an inch below her belly button, but nobody is around to see her anyway. These towels are perfectly fine, so why waste money to get new ones?
She dresses in her usual tank top and skinny jeans along with boots and her favorite red leather jacket. She'll get her scrubs at the hospital today, but she needs to bring her own shoes, so she grabs those in one hand and her keys and phone in the other. Times like these she thinks a purse would be good, then she snorts and rolls her eyes. It's never going to happen.
As she arrives at her yellow bug, she actually hesitates before going inside. It'll be her first drive to work. Her first day on the job, and her trusty old (stolen) bug is going to get here there. She rolls her eyes at herself and gets in.
Today will probably be crappy, she figures. All first days are. Even in the first week will be bad. But she's still excited to get to St. Claire's, so excited that she runs a red light. Thankfully no one is around to see it, though she bets she'll get a ticket in the mail soon. She curses herself and drives carefully.
The building looms over. She already parked, walked out of the garage, and is now standing in front of the set of sliding doors. "Just go in, Emma," she mumbles. She clutches her shoes and forces herself to head inside.
If she's honest, she doesn't know where to go next. She already had her name tag, she got it last week. She has a momentarily freak out for not thinking of this ahead of time.
"Intern?" A man appears besides her. He wore the blue scrubs of St' Claire's. His eyes were covered in eyeliner and he had a strong Irish accent.
Emma nods her head silently, her body relaxing just a little bit.
"Don't worry, you aren't the first I'm redirecting today." The man sends a small smile that makes Emma actually feel better. "Go down that there hall and make a left and walk down the hall until you come to a set of double doors. There will be e a sign or something." He flashes her a bright smile this time and continued. "Well, I think there might be a sign."
"What do I do once I'm there?" Emma asks.
"You'll wait for the Chief to talk to all of you interns. Then you're on your own, sweetheart."
Being called sweetheart usually bothered Emma, but she got the feeling he probably called everyone that. She flashes him her own smile. "Thank you, Dr . . ." She trails off to look at his name tag, but he already has a hand out.
"Doctor Jones. Killian Jones."
Emma shakes his hand. "Emma Swan."
"Nice to meet you, Emma. Now you might want to get a move on."
Emma looks at the time and almost blanches. "Right. Thanks." Then she's off, going down the hall, making a left, and then going down the other hall. When she gets to the double doors, she pauses and takes a deep breath. (There's no sign.)
'My future starts now.'
There was already a lot of interns inside when she entered the room. They ranged from all ages, too, the oldest being a 59 year old man. Emma figured it was never too late to chase your dreams.
She glances at the clock and realizes she's exactly on time, meaning she can already tell all her now co-workers are suck ups.
In the next minute to come, three more people fill into the room but that's it. Then the door is blown open and silence fills the room as they all see the chief enter. Emma has saw him before, (never met him, though) and she still can't believe he's chief. He looks like he's in his early fifties, with a few spots of white in his otherwise fully brown hair. He wears a black dress shirt with a purple tie, black slacks, and leans a bit on a cane.
"Hello, everybody." He shoots the room a smile, but it's cold and almost teasing. "I'm Chief Gold, as you all probably know." And he jumps right into a speech about how lucky they all are, how by the time they're done with the year, they will hate this job, how to follow the rules of the hospital, respect your resident, and quite frankly, it's starting to sound a lot like every single teacher's speech on the first day of school.
She barely even realize they're moving until someone nudges her. She blushes and quickly follows behind everybody. He brings them to the intern locker room. "This is where you will change into your scrubs." Gold points to a bench that is lined with blue scrubs. "Everyone, please grab two sets in your size." As everyone makes a dash to grab them, he shouts out, "Your size, people! I do not want any of that baggy pants thing going on."
Emma forces herself not to roll her eyes and she swipes twp pairs of pants and two shirts. She's still holding her sneakers in her hand. She's the only one who has to change her shoes. Everyone else is wearing theirs. (It makes Emma grin. She's always the odd one out.)
"Now," Gold continues on once it seems like everyone has two pairs, "I will leave, you will change, and then an attending will be in here to give you your residents."
"Wait." A pale hand shoots in the hair and everyone turns to a small woman with a pixie cut. Right now she's looking like a school teacher and she blushes once everyone looks at her. "Sorry. Um, you want the girls and guys to change together?"
Emma wondered if she really just asked that. Gold hadn't previously split the girls and guys up, so it was assumed they would all be in the same locker room.
Gold gives the woman a hard stare, but Emma has to hand it to her because Pixie Cut doesn't back down. "This isn't high school," Gold eventually says. "You're all adults." With that he leaves.
He hadn't gave them all locker numbers, so people still around for a few seconds before Emma rolls her eyes and claims a locker as her own by opening it and finally putting her shoes down. There's a slight mumble as they all follow suit, and Emma once again prides herself on being a leader, not a follower.
She strips off her jacket and folds it neatly into her locker. She pulls on her blue shirt and hesitates as her fingers loop her jean's belt loops. A quick look around tells her most people are already fully dress and that no one is looking, so she quickly takes off her skinny jeans and puts on her scrub pants.
Emma cringes as she puts on her white shoes. She never would have been caught dead in shoes like these, but she highly doubted she could wear her boots. She shuts her locker and waits anxiously for the attending.
Some of the inters have started talking now. "I really don't mind who my resident is, as long as it's not Regina Mills," she hears a British, maybe Australia voice say.
"Why?" asks the person she must be talking to.
Emma sneaks a peak to see a pretty girl with curly brown hair nod her head. "My friend Ruby works here and she says she's the meanest."
"I think I also heard that," says the girl opposite of her.
Emma rolls her eyes and looks at her phone. They should be glad they're here. She knows herself she'll be happy no matter what.
"Alright everyone, listen up." Emma quickly locks in her phone and does as told. An attending is in the room, holding a clipboard. "French, Hopper, and . . ." The attending narrows his eyes at his clipboard before shrugging and looking back up. "And Charming. You're all with Dr. De Vil."
The Brit/Aussie lines up at the door and so does the man with Charming as a last name, along with a tall guy with glasses, who looks like he should be more of shrink than a doctor. Before they leave, the attending stops them. " Dr. De Vil is at at the nurses station. Meet her there."
Emma feels her palms start to sweat. She doesn't want to show it, doesn't want to show she's nervous, so she just listens closely as the attending lists off more names.
"Sea, Blanchard, and Swan. You're with Mills." With a jolt, Emma realizes that's her and she quickly stands at the door. She's met with two other women. (The Brit/Aussie had said 'Regina Mills' so Emma figured it would be a group of all girls. Should be fun.)
The attending barely looks at them. "Nurses station. Alright, next group."
Emma heads out with the two other woman. She notices she's with Pixie Cut. Yeah, this definitely should be fun.
Nobody speaks as they walk to the nurses station. A bunch of residents are there, chatting probably about their soon to be inters, except, of course, for one. She stands off to the side with arms crossed and rolling her eyes occasionally.
She's the first to see them. "I'm the next to get them, so you must be mine," is her way of greeting. She nods curtly at them. "Here." She gives them each a pager, and is it just her, or did Emma notice that she made sure not to touch any of their hands?
"Walk with me." They do as told and start to follow her. "I'm Dr. Mills. Names?"
"Ursula Sea," introduces the girl with coffee colored skin.
" Ursula Sea?" Dr. Mills says the name in a disbelieving tone before Emma and Pixie Cut could introduce themselves. (Not that Emma could blame her, really.)
"My parents saw the chance and took it," Ursula explains.
(Emma thinks that if that was her name, she would have changed it the minute she turned 18. No way would she allow herself to be stuck with a name like "Ursula Sea" for the rest of her life. Suddenly, Emma was glad for her name, despite always thinking it was too common growing up.)
"Great." Dr. Mills tone is so monotone that Emma can't tell if it's true or not. "You two," she then orders with a quick nod over her shoulder.
"Mary Margaret Blanchard."
Emma licks her lips. "Emma Swan."
"Well, Emma, thank you for being the only one with a normal name." Before Emma could process the comment, Dr. Mills suddenly stopped at a room. "Now, this will be your first case. I will assign assignments as I see fit inside."
She enters the room and they have no choice but to follow.
A little girl is lying on the bed, and Emma feels her stomach drops as she remembers reading the sign as the entered the ward. 'Pediatrics'. And because why not? Of course they would visit a sick child first.
"Everyone, this is Carla Rut." Dr. Mills smiles down at the girl.
Emma notices that Mills' voice is much softer. It's nice and comforting.
"Seven years old," Ursula offers as she scans the clipboard Regina had handed to her. Emma quickly looked over her should, as Blanchard was already next to her. Her voice wavers as she reads the next part. "Leukemia."
"Has had seven surgeries in the past two years," Emma reads.
"Make that eight now," Dr. Mills says. "Carla's sister's bone marrow is a match. They're prepping the sister now for the transplant. Sea, your job is to prep Carla for the surgery. Blanchard, Swan, come with me."
The two follows Dr. Mills out of the room and Emma wonders just what the hell had she gotten herself into.
~()~
At lunch, Emma sits with Blanchard and Charming. She thought all the interns would stick with their group, but instead everyone found themselves sitting near people they actually like. This remindes Emma of high school and it makes her nervous because she hasn't made friends yet, as middle school-y as that sounded.
While Emma had been searching for an empty table, Blanchard had called her over. She had already been sitting with Nolan and he seemed nice enough so she didn't object.
"I washed my hands like fifteen times and I'm still not comfortable picking up my sandwich," Mary Margaret says and Emma snorts into her orange juice. Poor her. Mills had stuck her on rectal exams, and if Emma didn't know better, she would say Dr. Mills had a personal vendetta against the other woman.
"Here." David picks up Mary's Margaret's sandwich for her and lifts it to her lips. She smiles sweetly at him and takes a bite. She manages a thanks around the bite with a dopey grin, and Emma bets they'll be together by the time their intern year is over.
He goes to give her another bite but this time M&M blushes and manages to stammer out that she has it from here. He blushes but still manages a grin and yeah, married with a child on the way by the end of the year no doubt.
"So Emma," David stuffs his mouth with pasta and lands red sauce on his cheek, "where you from?"
She gets this asked a lot. She's really not sure where's she's from, because she's lived in every single state in the U.S. Even if it was for as little as a day, (she got there, broke a plate on accident, and was sent back the next day) she still has lived in every state.
But Boston was her favorite city, so she says from there.
This makes them both stop eating. Mary Margaret glances up and wrinkles her nose. "How did you get from Boston to New York?"
It's really not a story she's ready to share yet. She remembers the happiness she had in Boston, the fun she had. Her friends, her boyfriend, her dorm in college. Then because she remembers those memories, she starts to remember why she left and she swirls her jello with a fork.
"I just needed a change, yaknow?"
They nod, but Emma knows they really don't know.
She wants to change the subject, and she even is about to, when her pager goes off. 'Saved by the bell,' she thinks as she stands. She notices with disdain no one else is getting paged.
"I have to go to the clinic," Emma says in confusion. Why was Regina paging her there? That was what she was assigned to in the morning. Runny noses and over worried mothers wasn't exactly what Emma had in mind, but to hey, it was also better than prepping a dying kid for surgery, doing rectal exams, or, as David told her, having to help the scary Dr. De Vil with paper work.
"See you guys later." Emma remembers the rule Dr. Mills had told them: always run when paged. She curses and starts to run. She leaves her tray, but knows M&M or David will through it away for her.
When she gets to the clinic, she's out of breath and can barely walk over to where Dr. Mills is standing. Emma hadn't known her for long, but she can tell the older woman is trying very hard not to roll her eyes as she talks to the annoying mom Emma was talking to this morning.
"Dr. Swan, there you are." Regina does roll her eyes this time, but it's at Emma. "Mrs. Allan says she talked to you this morning about her child?"
Emma looks down at the child that's not really a child, but a 16 year old girl who has been quiet through everything. "Yes, Dr. Mills." She's confused and she doesn't know where this was going.
"Well, she says you did nothing to help and told her to go home."
Ah, Emma realizes. That would do it. "I did, Dr. Mills."
"She basically told us she was useless!" screeches the mom and Emma wants so badly to cover her head with her hands. How much longer did she have until her night was over?
"No," Emma says. "I told you that there was nothing wrong with your daughter and that you should just go home and talk to her."
Now Dr. Mills was giving Emma a confused look and Emma bets everything she owns that Mrs. Allan hadn't told Dr. Mills what was 'wrong' with her daughter. "Mrs. Allan's daughter is-"
"A son!" screeches Mrs. Allan, catching the attention of many other people in the clinic. "My son is a boy! Now he's trying to say he's a girl. His name is not Jessica, it's Joshua! His name Joshua, he's a he, and I'm telling you both, there's something wrong in his head!"
Dr. Mills finally realizes what's going on and shares a look with Dr. Mills. "Ma'am." Dr. Mills says slowly, "there really is nothing you can do. Dr. Swan was right. Nothing is wrong with your dau-child."
"Are you kidding me? He's trying to be a girl!"
Emma can't hold it in anymore. The words seem to tumble out of her in a page of red furry. "Mrs. Allan, your daughter is transgender. She has confided in you because she thought she could trust you. Because she loves you. There's nothing wrong with her, but maybe's there's something wrong with you for judging the child you're suppose to love no matter what. I suggest you go home, have a glass of wine, and realize you have a perfectly normal daughter."
She doesn't see the fist coming. She's so livid from her speech that it completely knocks her off guard. Her nose immediately starts spewing blood. There's a scream from the daughter, a gasp from Dr. Mills, and Emma hears no more, because the shock of it all had her tumbling back, tripping over her own two feet, and landing hard on the floor.
Her brain rattles inside her head, it goes fuzzy, and then it just goes dark.
~()~
When Emma wakes up, she immediately wants to go back to sleep because her head is pounding. It hurts like she's hung over and Emma's eyes fly open because she doesn't remember getting drunk.
"Careful," a voice warns once Emma eyes close painfully to get away from the harsh light. "How are you felling?"
Emma opens her eyes slowly to see Dr. Mills leaning over her, and it all comes back to her now. She groans and clutches her head. "My head hurts," she whines like a small child.
Dr. Mills gets out a smile. "I would imagine so." She must somehow know Emma's throat feels like the Sahara Desert, because she hands Emma a cup of water, which she drowns in one gulp. "You took a nasty spill," Dr. Mills continues.
Emma nodded slowly. "Yeah. How's my nose?"
"Not broken. Dr. De Vil says it should heal fast."
Emma remembers De Vil was head of Plastic and it relaxes her. "That's good. How long have I been out?"
Dr. Mills checks her watch. "Half an hour. Blanchard has been asking for an update on you every minute. I caught Charming trying to sneak in to see you five minutes ago on his way to prep."
Emma scratches her head and carefully sits up. "I only met them today though."
Dr. Mills shrugs. "Signs of good friends."
Emma suspected Regina didn't have a lot of friends, but didn't dare in her wildest dreams bring that up. "What happened to Mrs. Allan?"
"Security was called. I told them you probably wouldn't want to press charges so they just escorted them out."
Emma nodded. "Lucky for Mrs. Allan, I'm nice," she grouches, and Dr. Mills actually laugh.
Her laugh was very pretty, Emma notes. Then her pager goes off and she sighs. "Duty calls. You're good to go back to work now, I want you to do the after surgery prep on Carla Rut. She should be out by now." With that she's gone and Emma sighs.
Her boss is is one strange lady, but she grabs her pager off the bed side table and heads off to see Carla.
"Hey there," she says as she enters the little girl's room. "How you feeling?"
"Okay," Carla says. Her voice is raw and horse. "How's my sister?"
"Actually kiddo, I don't know, but how about when I'm done I go check on her, okay?"
Carla nods silently and Emma starts to explain the small things she was going to do. Halfway through Emma explaining how she was going to take Carla's blood pressure, the little girl stops her.
"It's okay," she says. "I've done this before."
Emma forces a smile on her face. It's upsetting this little girl had to go through all of this. It's upsetting any kid has to go through this. "Carla, you're very strong." Emma gets the blood pressure numbers and charts it down before saying she'll be checking vitals now.
And then it just all goes to hell. Carla starts to cough. It's a little one at first and it quickly becomes her not breathing because she's coughing so much. "Carla, are you okay?" Wide wide eyes Emma sits the child up.
Carla shakes her head no and Emma is about to page Dr. Mills, when suddenly Carla vomits blood and then she faints. "I NEED A CRASH CART!" Emma screams and not even three seconds later five nurses are pushing in a cart. "Page Dr. Mills!" demands Emma, but she knows in her heart it won't be fast enough.
It seems like the paddles take ten years to charge before Emma can place them over the little girl's chest. It doesn't work, so they charge again. And again. And again. And again until a nurse is saying it's too late, until the flatline has been beeping in Emma's ears for five minutes, until a gentle hand is resting on Emma's wrist while another one is making her drop the paddles.
"Come on, Emma." Dr. Mills looks at the clock. "Time of death, 1:23 pm."
And then Emma is being pulled away and there are tears running down her face. She was told in medical school not to get too attached to the patients, but this was a little girl she failed to save. On her first day she killed a patient. How was that fear?
She's aware of being sat down on a bed an in on call room, aware of Dr. Mills sitting next to her. It's silent as Dr. Mills just allows Emma to cry. "I never even meant her parents," Emma sobs, head buried in her resident's shoulder, and she's aware it's probably against the rules. "I mean, where were they?!"
"She never had any," Dr. Mills says, her voice rising as she gazed at Emma. "Her sister, who was 21, was taking care of her. Carla had to go through her surgeries before they could get the transplant. She had many other problems. There was nothing you could have done."
"I could have saved her!" Emma didn't mean to snap, but she was so angry. She wipes at her eyes, but it was kind of useless because the tears just kept falling. "I could have saved her, Dr. Mills."
"Regina." Dr. Mills rubs circles into Emma's back, making the blonde question how she knew it calms her down. "Right now, I'm just Regina, Emma."
Emma nods and relaxes into the touch. "How did she . . ." She can't get out the question without fully bursting into tears.
"Graft-versus-host disease," Regina answers. "It usually happens over time in a few weeks, but in rare cases, it is almost immediate."
Graft-versus-host disease: the body of the transplant receiver does not recognize the transplant and it attacks it. Usually takes place over a few weeks, but can happen almost immediately in rare cases. If not picked up early, it can result in death.
"I'm sorry I'm a mess," Emma suddenly says, sniffling, in dire need of a tissue.
Regina seems to read her mind and pulls a clean stack out of her pocket. Emma smiles her thanks and blows her nose, then tosses it in the nearby trashcan. "I mean, I'm a doctor. I shouldn't be like this."
"It was your first patient, Emma," Regina tells her. "Your first patient on your first day. Your first patient dying is awful. Your first patient dying on you first day is horrible and barely ever happens."
"Still." Emma swipes another tissue to dab at her eye. "I shouldn't be so upset."
"Emma, stop." Regina gently turns Emma around to she can look the blonde in her eyes. "I barely came back after my first patient died." Emma glances up, intrigued. "I just survived my first week of being an intern. The next week started and I still felt high on life. Then we get this patient. He's perfectly healthy, just comes in for a check up on a past surgery."
Regina breathes in deeply and Emma knows this must still hurt Regina to this day. "One second I'm taking his blood pressure, listening him go on and on about his pregnant wife, and then . . . he just falls. He's dead by the time he hits the floor."
"An aneurysm," Emma guesses.
Regina nods. "I blamed myself for the longest time because I was there when he was talking. I was taking his blood pressure. He was so alive and then he just wasn't. I was so mad. He was there for many checkups after his surgery. How did no one catch it? But he was there to get his appendix removed. No one thought to check his brain.
"I was just so angry. I even blew up at my resident. I was so mad, so upset that no one bothered to check . . . My resident should have fired me for flipping out, for causing a scene . . . Instead he brought me to an on call room, sat me down, and told me the loss of his first patient. He told me his resident had done the same to him, because his resident had done the same."
"So it's like a tradition."
Regina nods. "Yeah, you could say that."
Emma grins. "Thanks for sharing it with me."
Regina nods and stands up. She offers her hand to Emma, who gladly takes it. "Thank you," she says.
Dr. Mills nods. "I suggest we both get back to work."
Emma checks the time and groans. "It's only 2. This day just seems to go on forever."
Dr. Mills gives a small smile. "First days always do."
~()~
Emma scribbles furiously on a chart, realizes it's not legible, and crosses it out. She's not sure if she's happy or not doing paperwork for a Dr. Diaz. She hasn't even met the dude and she's forced to do his paperwork.
Thankfully, she's almost done, and ten minutes later she hands it in. She just happens to be in the emergency room to meet Dr. Diaz when the doors are blown open and two EMTs are rolling in a stretcher with a woman strapped tightly in. She doesn't have anything else to do. In fact, she was just about to go find Dr. Mills to see what to do.
Emma goes to her, along with a resident and an attending. "22 year old female, pregnant. Had a seizure and fell down some stairs. On the way here she had multiple seizures and her heart stopped once." The EMT rattles off blood pressure and vital signs as Emma got a look at the girl.
"Right." The resident turns to Emma and frowns. "You aren't one of mine, but you're here so get to it."
Emma straps on some gloves and thinks about her jealous the other interns will be, especially M&M, who, as far as Emma knew twenty minutes ago, was still on rectal exams.
Maybe the rest of her day will be alright.
~()~
When she gets home, the first thing Emma does is strip and throws herself on her bed. She breathes in the smell of freshly washed sheets and smiles happily, her eyelids already drooping. She couldn't wait to fall asleep.
All the other interns had gone out to a bar near the hospital. Emma was tempted to join them, but after her day, she just wanted to go home. It had gotten better once her ER patient came in. They found the cause of her cause of seizures and operated. Both woman and baby made it. Emma didn't get to scrub in, but she was allowed to watch from the gallery, which still made a lot of her fellow interns jealous.
Still though. It was long and hard. Emma didn't really know what to expect for her first day on the job, but this wasn't it. First days always sucked, but Emma wouldn't classify today as sucking. More like weird. Yeah, that's it. It was a weird day and she was just glad she was home.
Emma barely manages to slip under her covers. Just as she was about to fall into a deep sleep, her eyes snaps open as she realized tomorrow she will have to do it All. Over. Again.